The famous movie star who played one of the most famous horror characters of all time looks unrecognizable in old photos

• The Homecoming queen turned Hollywood star has had a complete makeover before she hits the big screen
• The leading lady — who was a hit in the 1970s and even earned an Academy Award for Best Actress — was almost unrecognizable after graduation
• She starred in an iconic and very gory horror film early in her career

A certain star who made it big in Hollywood in the 1970s with a featured role in a horror movie looked very different in high school.

The American star has received an Academy Award for Best Actress as well as five other Academy Award nominations throughout her career.

She also won three Golden Globe Awards and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance.

The actress has starred in films alongside Hollywood royalty, including Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, John Travolta, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Tommy Lee Jones.

Her breakout role was in the original screenplay of the Stephen King novel – which was remade in 2013 and starred Chloë Grace Moretz in the same role.

Mary Elizabeth Spacek – better known as Sissy Spacek – is a Hollywood star who underwent a major transformation before entering the entertainment industry.

Spacek, 73, is best known for playing the titular role in the 1976 film adaptation of Stephen King’s supernatural horror film “Carrie” — but she’s had a long and impressive tenure in Hollywood, and it’s not over yet.

She was born in Quitman, Texas, on Christmas Day 1949 and grew up close to her parents and siblings — who nicknamed her Sissy.

The actress was deeply affected by the tragic death of her brother Robbie at the age of 18 from leukemia, even referring to it as “the highlight of my entire life”, but said the tragedy made her “brave” in her acting career.

I think it made me brave. “Once you experience something like this, you have faced the ultimate tragedy,” she said. “If you can keep going, nothing else scares you.

“It probably gave more depth to my work because I actually went through something profound and life-changing.”

After a stint as homecoming queen at Quitman High School followed by her graduation – the Texas native picked up and went to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a singer and songwriter.

Between homecoming and diving into the recreational pool, Spacek underwent a complete physical transformation.

In her yearbook photo – a teen Sissy poses with her homecoming crown wearing thick eye makeup, styling her hair with bangs and showing off her full, straight set of teeth with a sweet smile.

By the time she arrives in New York City – she has leaned into her cute look – with natural freckles, no makeup, strawberry blonde hair and a thin face, plus a nose that appears much smaller.

She was dropped from her label when sales of the music she recorded collapsed in the late 1960s.

In her return, she made her big screen debut in Prime Cut – a 1972 film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Lee Marvin. Spacek played Poppy – a girl sold into sexual slavery.

Her breakout role was in Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands — a crime drama starring Spacek alongside Martin Sheen — a role she described as the “most amazing” experience of her career.

Then came her most notable early role in Carrie, a role in which she had to beg director Brian De Palma to cast her.

She showed up to the audition with Vaseline in her hair and wearing a sailor dress her mother made when she was a child and her determination and commitment to the role paid off.

Her performance as Carrie received rave reviews and she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

The New Yorker published a review of her film Carrie by Pauline Kael, who said: “She moves back and forth and sideways: a nasal, thin child; a chaste young beauty at the ball; and then a second shift when her destructive impulses explode and she grows old.”

“Sissy Spacek uses her freckled paleness and white eyelashes to suggest a groggy, exhausted girl who could go in any direction; at times, she looks as if she was not yet born—a fetus.

Spacek went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter for her portrayal of country music star Loretta Lynn — and sang her character’s vocals herself.

Two years later, she gave birth to her first daughter with production designer and art director Jack Fisk, whom she married in 1974 after they met on the set of Badlands.

The couple had two daughters – Schuyler Fisk, 41, and Madison Fisk, 35. Both girls entered the entertainment industry themselves, Schuyler as a musician and Madison as a production designer.

Spacek said her daughters “brought her back down to earth” at a time when her “career was soaring.”

The family moved to a farm near Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1982. “I wanted to give my kids roots,” Spacek said. Make them grow up with animals and dirt between their toes.

She released her memoir – My Extraordinary Ordinary Life – in 2020. The book is divided into four parts: Texas, New York, California, and Virginia, each of which represents a stage in her life.

Spacek worked with Harvey Weinstein in 1990 on a film about the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In an interview with the Irish Times she spoke of how she was lucky because she usually worked with friends – and often her artistic director husband – who protected her from the abusive side of Hollywood.

I was already a well-known actor, so I was protected that way from him. “I was also warned by someone close to him, who said be careful, and so I was,” she said when asked about Weinstein.

“He did some things that I thought were very distasteful, but they weren’t sexual,” she shared her experience with the film producer and convicted sex offender.